Trump’s religious liberty order slammed as ‘pretty much nothing’

May 4, 2017

7 Min Read

President Trump signs an Executive Order on Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty during the National Day of Prayer event at the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 4, 2017. Photo courtesy of Reuters/Carlos Barria

(RNS) President Trump signed a highly anticipated executive order on religious liberty at a sun-splashed Rose Garden ceremony on the National Day of Prayer on Thursday (May 4), basking in the praise of religious leaders who blessed his action as an answer to their prayers.

“It was looking like you’d never get here, folks. But you got here!” a triumphant Trump told the gathering after a series of invocations from Baptist and Catholic leaders, and from Paula White, the prosperity gospel televangelist who is one of Trump’s main religious advisers.

Yet even before the carefully orchestrated event was over, Trump’s grand gesture toward his religious base appeared to falter as a matter of policy, and perhaps as politics: Social conservatives who had been expecting much more, and much sooner, expressed sharp disappointment, and the order itself seems unlikely to have much real impact on current laws and regulations.

“[C]onstitutionally dubious, dangerously misleading, and ultimately harmful to the very cause that it purports to protect,” David French wrote in a blistering analysis in National Review. “In fact, he should tear it up, not start over, and do the actual real statutory and regulatory work that truly protects religious liberty.”

“Woefully inadequate,” wrote Ryan Anderson of the conservative Heritage Foundation and a prominent commentator on religious liberty issues. The order, he added in a tweet, shows that Trump “either wasn’t listening or doesn’t care. Or simply caved to Left’s bullying.”

Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and an expert on religious freedom issues who is respected across the political spectrum, was also unimpressed.

“This is pretty much nothing,” Laycock wrote in an email.

The religious liberty executive order is meaningless. No substantive protections for conscience. A betrayal. Ivanka and Jared won. We lost. https://t.co/Xn94KWTKPX

The two-page executive order has three main points, according to a summary that the White House released to reporters:

First, it declares that “it is the policy of the administration to protect and vigorously promote religious liberty.”

Second, it “directs the IRS to use maximum enforcement discretion to alleviate the burden of the Johnson Amendment,” which is the 1950s-era law that threatens nonprofits – including clergy and churches — with the loss of their tax-exempt status if they engage in electioneering.

Critics said the first point was essentially boilerplate rhetoric extolling religious freedom.

More important, they said, the order has no exemptions for religious groups or businesses that object to LGBT anti-discrimination laws — a priority for Christian conservatives — so it provides no relief to bakers or florists, for example, who refuse to provide services for gay couples.

Trump’s order also does not go nearly as far as a draft executive order that had circulated shortly after Trump was inaugurated in January and that had raised the hopes of religious conservatives growing anxious that Trump would not make good on his promise to address religious liberty.

Moreover, the new order itself is carefully hedged in its language on the two points of policy that it addresses, the contraception mandate and the Johnson Amendment.

For example, it asks the secretary of Health and Human Services “consider” issuing regulations to provide relief from the contraception mandate and says it must be done within the constraints of “applicable law” — that law currently being the health care law passed under President Obama.

So the order itself doesn’t really do anything to the mandate and it appears to mean that much would depend on the outcome of the other major Washington story on Thursday, the House’s close vote to repeal and replace Obamacare – a vote that might not be repeated in the Senate.

The same is true for the language regarding the Johnson Amendment.

“All executive departments and agencies shall, to the greatest extent practicable and to the extent permitted by law, respect and protect the freedom of persons and organizations to engage in religious and political speech,” the executive order says.

At the Rose Garden ceremony, Trump painted a picture — as he has in the past — of religious believers facing virtual state-sponsored oppression under his predecessor thanks to the Johnson Amendment and other laws, saying that any pastor who spoke about “issues of public or political importance” was threatened with devastating financial consequences.

President Trump displays the Executive Order on Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty during a National Day of Prayer event at the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington D.C., on May 4, 2017. Photo courtesy of Reuters/Carlos Barria

“The abuses were widespread. The abuses were all over,” Trump said.

“For too long the federal government has used the power of the state as a weapon against people of faith, bullying and even punishing Americans for following their religious beliefs,” Trump declared. “No one should be censoring sermons or targeting pastors,” he said, adding: “We are giving our churches their voices back.”

Congregations ranging from liberal African-American churches to conservative Catholic parishes have routinely spoken out on political issues and pastors have openly endorsed candidates without fear of retribution from the IRS or any other federal agency.

As Laycock noted, the order’s language on the Johnson Amendment “does not say that churches should be allowed to endorse candidates. It says only that they should not be found guilty of implied endorsements on facts where secular organizations would not be. I have heard no stories of that happening.”

“For the record, I have no interest in endorsing candidates from the pulpit,” tweeted Denny Burk, a pastor in Louisville, Ky., and a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “And I would be wary of any preacher that does.”

In short, few believe the Johnson Amendment is much of a problem and many of those who do don’t think Trump’s executive order is much of a solution.

As Laycock said, this all “may lead to good things for believers down the road, but it does nothing immediately.”

Even the ACLU, which initially vowed to file suit against the order, later reversed course because the order had nothing in it that could be challenged. It was, ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said, “an elaborate photo-op with no discernible policy outcome.”

About the author

David Gibson

David Gibson is a national reporter for RNS and an award-winning religion journalist, author and filmmaker. He has written several books on Catholic topics. His latest book is on biblical artifacts: "Finding Jesus: Faith. Fact. Forgery," which was also the basis of a popular CNN series.

56 Comments

It is what it is. Everybody knows that the president’s two close advisers — Ivanka & Jared — are three shades to the left of Hillary Clinton concerning gay marriage.

And that’s on top of the public promise(s) Trump gave to the gay activists in an effort to court their votes, just as he likewise courted the Christian votes.

So none of the Christian conservatives want to admit it, but it’s a miracle that Trump issued ANY half-hearted religious liberty executive order at all. Instead of complaining, the next move should simply be for Christians to quickly use whatever small helps this order may offer.

What don’t you understand that you can’t use your religion to discriminate! I am sick of religion being used to harm others. What don’t you understand about the NO establishment clause of the 1st amendment?

Except that your gang (the HRC), and the abortion fanatics at NARAL, really put in a visible effort this week acting like there’s something or something(s) that really scare them about this religious liberty order. They clearly do NOT dismiss this order as “pretty much nothing.”

So like I suggested, we Christians just need to stop complaining, mull over the material, patiently figure out the scary part (or in what direction a scary part can best be pursued over time), and then make the scary part come true for HRC and NARAL (and the ACLU too, while you’re at it!!)

You failed to mention that James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and Samuel Rodriguez all expressed a positive, confident opinion of the new religious liberty order. They didn’t say it was perfect — it’s clearly not — but they can see that it’s going to be of some help around here.

But even there, you can catch the ACLU putting up a convenient little disclaimer at the end of their press blurb.“The ACLU stands ready to sue the Trump administration and in the event that this order triggers any official government action at all, we will see Trump in court, again.”

So in fact the ACLU is already itching to sue, but they want to wait and see specifically how people choose to put this order into action. THEN, they’ll announce the court challenge that they said wasn’t worth it. (Heh!)

Which highlights Ralph Reed’s accurate statement: “This is just the first bite at the apple, not the last…this order is a giant step in the right direction.”

Goodness, it sounds as if you are worried about some sort of potential threat with Trump’s order. Not an explicit wordy attempt to overturn a no-good court decision, but a more subtle, more de-facto, more dangerous threat.

One in which ordinary, insignificant people simply rise up, one brave and principled refusal at a time, and use their religious freedom to take a personal stand for what is right and beneficial for America. Literally overturning an evil court decision one person at a time.

Yes, I can see how that might bother some folks. Sleep well tonight, Leyla!

Dobson, Perkins, Reed, and Graham never reacted to anything any right-wing Republican did negatively because they’re nothing but politicians. Rodriguez I don’t know but if he gets mentioned in the same breath as those enemies of freedom there’s not much to wonder about.

On the contraception mandate, Cardinal DiNardo, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the executive order “begins the process of alleviating the serious burden of the HHS mandate.” DiNardo stressed that in recent years, “people of faith have experienced pressing restrictions on religious freedom from both the federal government and state governments that receive federal funding.”
He noted that church agencies have specifically experienced such a restriction in adoption, education, health care and other social services, where he said “widely held moral and religious beliefs, especially regarding the protection of human life as well as preserving marriage and family, have been maligned in recent years as bigotry or hostility.”
Mother Loraine Marie Maguire, superior of the Little Sisters of the Poor, visited by Pope Francis while in the US in support of their lawsuit, said in a statement that the sisters are “grateful for the president’s order.”

Jesus Christ who was born Jewish was very upset with his people about the Talmud. Jesus said, “You teach for doctrines the commandments of men.” Matthew 15:9 Jesus pointed out to them as Vipers, the Synagogue of Satan and “ofExpand text… your father the Devil” because “By your traditions, you have made the Word of God” of no effect, Mark 7:13.

MARTIN LUTHER, Table Talk of Martin Luther, translated by William Hazlet, page 43
“But the Jews are so hardened that they listen to nothing; though overcome by testimonies they yield not an inch. It is a pernicious race, oppressing all men by their usury and rapine. If they give a prince or magistrate a thousand florins, they extort twenty thousand from the subjects in payment. We must ever keep on guard against them.”

John Calvin’s and John Kerry’s real name was Kohn. He was a Judas Goat to divide and conquer the movement Martin Luther started.

And the facade will last until the next time some business is sued for refusing to be an accessory to sinful activity, whether that be a revisionist “marriage” or refusing to provide birth control to its employees. At which point the faithful will demand that Trump honor his promise.

Oh, stop your whining G. There are ZERO personal insults or attacks against Leyla in my post. (And that’s no accident–that’s how I generally do my business.)

But yes, Leyla’s post does sound stressed-out for no reason (or at least the ACLU currently says there’s no reason). So I didn’t mind placing a little wink-nudge at the end of my explanation. I like it, I stand by it. You disagree, well so you do.

(But maybe you’d like to actually deal with the explanation offered. Better yet, how about YOU sit back and respect Leyla enough to let Leyla respond in Leyla’s own words?)

Meanwhile, on the trivia question, I sure AM devout (although the local folks may disagree on the exact assessment of what I’m devout at.) C’est la vie!

Actually, one definite area has now been identified, (maybe there will be other areas in the future), where Trump’s order clearly changes the game and gives a badly-needed boost to America’s religious liberty meter.

You DO have something to worry about, if you are opposed to constitutional freedoms of religion and speech.

Trump’s order is a sick joke. His only interest in religious liberty is to sabotage it. Examples: His steamy advocacy of forcing all taxpayers to support religious institutions with his school voucher plan and his appointment of the totally unqualified Betsy DeVos as education secretary, and his insane war on women’s health and rights of conscience on reproductive matters. Trump is defecating on the religious liberty enshrined by our Founders in the First Amendment. — Edd Doerr

Why, by asking them to treat other people as they would be treated, I am persecuting them and forcing them to violate their delicate consciences. I’ve already. Even blocked by two snowflakes in the last week who simply withered, or melted, or whatever it is they do when I suggested that they be nice to people.

You wrote, in part, “Because it’s his and not yours. And because Jesus told him so.” (This was in response to Leyla1001nights, right?) I would suggest holding your fire – until you have your target clearly identified, and (b) showing actual words from your target to make your case for you.

I think you flatter yourself a bit too much. I’ve blocked several posters simply because they never have anything substantive to contribute and the comment thread reads much more cleanly without them. Not everyone has unlimited time to scroll through reams of cyber-snark.

I haven’t blocked you, of course, but at this point it wouldn’t be an altogether terrible idea because I’m pretty sure I’ve already heard just about everything you have.

Did I say “insults and attacks”, or did I say “nastiness and emotional abuse”?

“But yes, Leyla’s post does sound stressed-out for no reason [that I allow]…So I didn’t mind placing a little [nastiness and emotional abuse] at the end of my [put-down, to salt the wounds]. I like [my sadism], I stand by it.”

“Better yet, how about YOU sit back and respect Leyla enough to let Leyla respond in Leyla’s own words?”

Some people like to rock. Some people like to roll
But Pope Francis likes to sit around to satisfy his soul
He likes his women short. He like his women tall
And that’s about the only thing Pope Francis really digs

Francis belongs to the bernie generation
He don’t let anything boggle his mind
Francis belongs to the bernie generation
And everything’s goin’ just fine

Some people say Francis is lazy and his life’s a wreck
But that stuff doesn’t faze me, I get unemployment checks
and Francis runs around in boots, drugs and booze he craves
And that’s the way I wanna be when someone digs my grave

Francis belongs to the bernie generation
He don’t let anything boggle his mind
Francis belongs to the bernie generation
And everything’s goin’ just fine

Francis knew a man who worked from nine to five
Just to pay his monthly bills was why he stayed alive
So keep your country cottage, your house and lawn so green
Francis wants a one-room pad where he can make the scene

Francis belongs to the bernie generation
He don’t let anything boggle his mind
Francis belongs to the bernie generation
And everything’s goin’ just fine